And now, a list.

Since I was a kid, I have often kept a list of movies I want to see. This started when I cut out the first American Film Institute’s “100 Years, 100 Movies” list in our local newspaper. I taped it to my bookcase and set a goal to watch all 100 films by the end of the summer. That was 1998. I was 15.

Being in a small town, I couldn’t get my hands on some of the older titles. The rental shop wasn’t a Blockbuster, it was a trailer with a drive-thru window. Yes, a trailer converted into a video rental store. I have vivid memories of the floor creaking as I walked up and down the “aisles”. Kat’s Video in small town Louisiana was never going to carry a copy of The Jazz Singer or Modern Times. I was SOL on that front.

The older titles can still be hard to find for most people. If you’re lucky to live near Los Angeles in New York (or another film-friendly city), then maybe you can catch something at your local arthouse theater. I encourage you to see them on a big screen. It is a truly magical experience. I finally saw Lawrence of Arabia two years ago on the big screen. Some things are worth the wait. Check!

For other nights, there is the internet. While finding films is often easier to view, many films are still not digitized. Popularity makes certain films a priority when it comes to updating and preserving.

AFI’s marketing leaders knew a good thing when they saw it. They spent the next ten years creating more lists (Stars!, Laughs!, Thrills!) and then reranking the top 100 again in 2007. Several titles fell off the list completely. It’s interesting to look at this list after some time away and think about what films would be on it now.

I still haven’t finished the original AFI’s 100 Years, 100 Movies list. I enjoy coming back to it every few years to see my progress. I’m ok with knowing I may never mark all of them off. The list was merely a step in a process, an education and an inspiration that led me to where I am today. For that I’m grateful.

Do you have a “movies to watch” list? Do you track what films you’ve seen? What movies on this list have you not seen yet? What films are missing from this list (granted, you’ve traveled through time and it’s still 1998, so There Will Be Blood can’t be added!)